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This eerie supernatural story follows a young human boy called Nobody Owens as he is raised by ghosts in a graveyard after the murder of his parents. A clever reimagining of Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book".

I think this book is going to stick with me for a long time. It was written with a young audience in mind, but it's also a perfect novel that is more dense than its 300 pages let on. Equal parts gothic folktale and mysterious neo-noir, the ancient feel juxtaposed with a story set in modern times is something I hadn't come across before reading this. Slow development of sparse characterizations and an awesomely three-dimensional setting reel the reader into an enchanting world that is hard to leave once the last page has been read. I recommend The Graveyard Book to anyone with (or without) a pulse who enjoys a good story.

One of my very favourite of Neil Gaiman's books! A fantastic re-telling of Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book"---set in a Graveyard, rather than the Jungle! Follow Nobody Owens through his graveyard home and adventures and the mystery of his life beyond the Graveyard!

A story that mixes childhood and the macabre, The Graveyard Book tells the story of a boy raised by the ghosts of a small-town cemetery. This book is a wonderful example of realistic fiction, perfect for readers of any age, as long as they can handle a ghost story. It provides a nuanced twist to the traditional orphan-hero story, while allowing the reader to fall in love with the cross-generation inhabitants of the graveyard. You may read this book expecting monsters to be evil, and ghosts to be scary, though you may find out, you don’t know Jack.

I really enjoyed this one. There exists settings and characters that may seem grotesque, but the author has a way of letting his readers see it as just another thing. Everything human in the "world outside" becomes frightening. As with a couple other comments, I agree that the build-up towards the end is all worth it - don't just skim away and read it. Save it. The life potential topic within the story is very real. I'm amazed as to what you can find in a children's library nowadays.

A book is good when you finished reading it quickly within a couple of days. But a book is great when after falling in love with the main character you are sad to see him leave you. Nobody Owens is one of those characters who leave you wondering. Wondering about life, people, and whether you lived life to its fullest. One of my favorite quotes is near the end of the story and is said by Liza, "Truly, life is wasted on the living, Nobody Owens. For one of us is too foolish to live, and it is not I. Say you will miss me." ("The Graveyard Book", by Neil Gaiman)
This story is beautifully written and poetic to the end. It is obvious why this book won the Newberry Award. Literature is not dead and found in "The Graveyard Book".

Wanna read a book with a great, unique story line? This is your book! An 18 month old baby escapes the clutches of a bad man named Jack & finds safety & a new family in the nearby graveyard. With the help of the entire graveyard community, young Bod (short for Nobody) receives the same education that you & I received in our youth. He may have learned a few "other" lessons as well. Cute, warm, & even a little odd, this is a fun story. Due to the fact that Bod lives with dead people, there are some spirit/ghost elements to the story (non-scary). My age recommendation below is based on this fact.

I had read this years ago and liked it then (and still do on re-reading) but recently I read the graphic novel version, and liked it MUCH more. I never did like the original illustrations (David MacKean) and now that I have something to compare it to, I REALLY don't like them.

Nevertheless I recommend this story as a skillfully executed and cleverly imagined story of what it would be like for a live baby to be brought up by ghosts in a graveyard, get educated and introduced to the living world, confront evil and go on to live an independent adult life.

At the best of times his face was unreadable. Now his face was a book written in a language long forgotten, in an alphabet unimagined. Silas wrapped the shadows around him like a blanket, and stared after the way the boy had gone, and did not move to follow.

"There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife. The knife had a handle of polished black bone and a blade finer and sharper than any razor...if it sliced you, you might not even know that you had been cut - not immediately.

The knife had done almost everything it was brought to the house to do and both the blade and the handle were wet... "

VeganGreen
Jun 04, 2009

“I wanted to keep you perfectly safe,” said Silas. “But there is only one perfectly safe place for your kind and you will not reach it until all your adventures are over and none of them matter any longer.”

VeganGreen
Jun 04, 2009

At the best of times his face was unreadable. Now his face was a book written in a language long forgotten, in an alphabet unimagined. Silas wrapped the shadows around him like a blanket, and stared after the way the boy had gone, and did not move to follow.

Summary

An toddler walks out of his house when an man waken in in all black his shoes was black and when he came to the baby carriage the moon was reflecting on his shoe he took out a knife then was about to kill the baby but the baby wasn't there it had escape the house and ends up in a graveyard. His recently deceased mother beseeches Mr. and Mrs. Owens, 500 year inhabitants of the graveyard, to care for and protect her son. The Owenses agree, and with the steadfast assistance of Silas, a shadowy figure who has the Freedom of the Graveyard, the young boy becomes the graveyard's only living residentI just read a book called The Graveyard Book which is a story that follows a two year old boy's odd life until he is fifteen years old. During his life he is raised by ghosts in an abandon graveyard! Nobody Owens his the name the ghosts who adopted him gave him. This story describes his most amazing adventures.

Ólive
Jul 04, 2012

A toddler walks out of his house and ends up in a graveyard. His recently deceased mother beseeches Mr. and Mrs. Owens, 500 year inhabitants of the graveyard, to care for and protect her son. The Owenses agree, and with the steadfast assistance of Silas, a shadowy figure who has the Freedom of the Graveyard, the young boy becomes the graveyard's only living residentI just read a book called The Graveyard Book which is a story that follows a two year old boy's odd life until he is fifteen years old. During his life he is raised by ghosts in an abandon graveyard! Nobody Owens his the name the ghosts who adopted him gave him. This story describes his most amazing adventures.

A 2 year old boy escapes his house right before his family is murdered, and ends up in the graveyard. His mother's ghost begs the ghosts which inhabit the graveyard to care for her living son, and hide him from the murderer. So Nobody Owens is raised by the graveyard folk until the day the murderer finds him, and then he has to avenge the death of his family.

I just read a book called The Graveyard Book which is a story that follows a two year old boy's odd life until he is fifteen years old. During his life he is raised by ghosts in an abandon graveyard! Nobody Owens his the name the ghosts who adopted him gave him. This story describes his most amazing adventures.

A toddler walks out of his house and ends up in a graveyard. His recently deceased mother beseeches Mr. and Mrs. Owens, 500 year inhabitants of the graveyard, to care for and protect her son. The Owenses agree, and with the steadfast assistance of Silas, a shadowy figure who has the Freedom of the Graveyard, the young boy becomes the graveyard's only living resident.

notTom
Dec 16, 2010

In this 2009 Newberry Award winner, Nobody Owens has lived in the cemetery at the top of the hill since the night his family was murdered and a pair of ghosts took him in. Encountering vampires, specters, ghouls, werewolves, etc. on a daily basis, young Nobody ('Bod' for short) has the freedom of the graveyard, something accorded very rarely to living people. He has learned to fade, dream-walk, generate fear, and haunt as well as any living person can under the tutelage of the hundreds of ghosts living in his graveyard. As Nobody grows older, he seeks to find out why his parents and older sister were killed, and who exactly it was that killed them. To do this, he must leave the safety of the graveyard and face the danger that lies in wait for him out in the real world.

Set in a unique setting, told in a fresh way (Neil Gaiman himself narrates the audiobook) with a fascinating cast of characters, this book is an engaging hallmark of story-telling that is difficult to put down.